I recently gave a presentation to a group of technology-learning educators in Mexico through a program called Jornadas Tic. Here is the video of the presentation, if you are interested.
II JornadasTIC Chris Craft from Mayeutic on Vimeo.
Webminar: Tutoría online con aplicaciones 2.0
In advance of my PLP session a few days ago I tweeted out the question:
For a blog post: What do you think about blogging with students? Good? Bad? Mixed bag? I would love to hear your thoughts.
Here are the responses I got on Twitter. Note, this only shows responses that came as direct replies to the original tweet.
No replies found for status 9535286517.I offered to present to the PLP Year 2 participants and was accepted to present on student blogging. This is a topic that has interested me in both a tools perspective as well as a pedagogical one. I have seen student blogging done very well and I have seen it done not so well. My aim here is to identify both potential tool-based issues and considerations as well as to consider the pedagogical implications.
The first question to ask is what the purpose is when blogging. I posit that there are a variety of purposes for blogging.
1. Teacher-centered blog for communcation with students and families
2. Teacher-centered blog for communcation with other educators
3. Student-centered blog for communication with teacher and/or classmates
4. Student-centered blog for communcation with wider audience
I suppose that is not an exhaustive list but will serve us for the purposes of this discussion.
So once you decide what sort of blog you want to begin, you can begin looking at tools. We will focus on student blogging here, as it has a different set of implications requiring a more specific tool.
Here are the specific tools that I think are suited for student blogging, with each having certain benefits and drawbacks.
1. Blogger.com
3. WordPress.com – see features here.
4. 21classes.com – see features here.
5. Edublogs.org
6. WordPress Multi-User (must be installed on a server)
7. Kidblog.org – a heavily customized WPMU install. Hands down my pick.
What do you think about these tools?
Update: Here is the archived recording of the presentation. Also be sure to see the first comment for a great comment by Cathy Nelson.
I’ve been thinking about PleaseRobMe. It’s a clever idea, and a clever name. But all it does it search.
So I went to their site, and figured out how it works. And I set up a search for my local area. Now I can easily see who in my local area is not home. It certainly brings the robbing me issue closer to home.
Now the question is, what do I do about it? I’m not sure I need to do anything. My thinking goes like this..
1. Most of the time I check in, I am out of town at a conference. This is obvious by my earlier tweets, anyway. Am I putting my wife and daughters at greater risk?
2. Is anyone really reading that stuff anyway?
3. Shouldn’t I just protect my updates and not worry so much?
How do you all handle it that travel a lot? I confess I like to see folks check-in. It gives me a personal flavor to their tweets. And for me, Twitter is inherently personal.
Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure to present to a group of educators in Mexico via Elluminate. They were attending the Jornadas Tic conference. The room was full of folks who clearly wanted to learn about technology in education. They had to want to, since they were there at 5:15pm on a Friday evening!
Here is the recording of the session, should you want to hear it. It’s in Spanish, so if you want to brush up on your Spanish or just hear if I’m any good, hit up the link.
I’ve been playing with some alpha code that grabs replies to certain tweets and makes them publishable.
Theoretically, as new replies come in, this will be updated. So this is another test post.
No replies found for status 9018179206.
I have a group of kids that I’ve been working with on our morning news show, called Cougar KidKast.
Well, we’ve almost finished all of our episodes, as we’ve been working ahead of time. Now, I’m leaving it up to them (and you) to help me figure out what to teach them.
I asked them today what they wanted to learn about, and here is a short list. I’d love it if you would help me figure out what exactly they need to know. Bear in mind these are sixth graders, but they’re pretty tech savvy.
They want to learn how to:
So there is the list.
Perhaps you fancy yourself an expert in one of these areas? Maybe you want to come teach my class for me? We have pretty good access to Skype, want to guest speak? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for the help..
Chris
A few days ago, I mentioned that I wish I had a little video to show 5th graders to convince them to take Spanish when they get to CrossRoads.
Some of my kids were already on a video shoot when they caught wind of my wish, and this is what they produced, entirely on their own.
Kids, they’re too cool!
Click through to watch it in HD or hit the direct link.
Recently, I was asked to offer comments/ideas on a post by MagistraM. She gifted her newly 5 year-old daughter an iPod Nano. She specifically wants the device to be a source of learning for the child. I left her a fairly long comment, and I wanted to re-post it here for you to examine.
Here is my comment to her. I invite your thoughts.
I think I may be the lone dissenter here.
I think this is a question of attention and perception. Most children at that age do not have sufficient mental abilities (nor should they) to truly differentiate the two. That is to say, all too often, children at a young age do not know how to *not* follow all of the stimulus around them with their attention.
For example, you and I know how to ignore certain external stimuli, as well as distracting internal stimuli (i.e. thoughts) when we are concentrating on something else. Children do not. Often, attention and perception are not separate at such a young age. This is common, and not bad.
Children tend to learn this in the structured environment of school since school expects a child to not necessarily follow their attention everywhere it wants to go.
Also, I would argue that children at her age should be involved almost exclusively in imaginative play. It is in the context of re purposing everyday items into different items (i.e. the broom into a horse) that higher order cognitive abilities form at a young age. This is a crucial step that is often usurped by screen time.
Now I am terribly hypocritical of this, as I am working on a project and my girls are watching Dora. So I am not practicing what I preach as much as I ought, but nonetheless it is an arguable position.
So, is it bad to give her an iPod? No, not necessarily.
I guess the question becomes, it is a good thing?
I question that.
First, how much can she really learn at that age? Not a whole lot, I’d argue. The reason being, she does not have a sufficient set of cognitive schema through which to analyze new information. So, without a constructed lens through which to view new information, it will all seem a bit foreign.
Not only that, I suspect there isn’t much she *should* learn from an iPod at that age that she wouldn’t be better served by interacting with an adult.
Now, give her an iPod so she can listen to her music when she wants to? Sure.
But to give her an iPod because it is specifically a learning tool? Not so sure I buy that.
But then, it may just be me.
Chris
